Boy with a broken soul (heart with a gaping hole)
by Lizicia
Summary: 'There is nothing that can take the pain away but eventually you'll find a way to live with it.' So Ressler tries to live with it. Post-Mako Tanida.


**A/N:** I'm terribly sad for our dear agent Ressler because this last episode was just brutally painful. So I wrote something, as to try and navigate his grief because as much as I didn't feel too connected to Audrey, it tore me apart to see Ressler's happiness taken from him.

Title is from MS MR's _Bones_.

**Disclaimer:** You better handle Ressler very nicely in the next episodes, Jon Bokenkamp.

* * *

"Agent Ressler." Cooper's face is hard and disapproving. Ressler hardly finds it in himself to hear what he has to say but he hasn't forgotten proper conduct quite yet.

"Sir."

"Effective immediately, you are suspended, pending further inquiry into the shooting of one individual, kidnapping two and discharging your weapon at a fellow FBI agent."

He nods, automatically reaching for his badge and his gun; there was no other decision Cooper could've made and he understands. That isn't to say he particularly cares.

"Sir, there were extenuating circumstances. He didn't kill anyone and you know that this is not as clear-cut as it seems."

Ah, Keen. Worrying about him, caring for him, irritating him with her presence, with the comfort she wants to give him and he's inclined to push away because he just can't handle this right now.

"Agent Keen, this is none of your business."

"But, sir, this is my partner we're talking about and I-"

"Enough." Cooper is unrelenting. "I am well-aware of the circumstances surrounding this case; however, a thorough investigation is unavoidable. Given Agent Ressler's background, his career and his value to this taskforce, I do not foresee him being relieved of his duties permanently but right now, there is nothing more to discuss."

He goes home, completely disinterested in anything that has to do with protocol or conduct.

* * *

He's staring aimlessly at his door, as if waiting for Audrey to walk in – but she won't, she can't, she never will again – when someone knocks on the door and for a moment, he forgets and all but rushes to the door, convinced that it will be her.

Instead it's his partner. Really, he should've known.

"What are you doing here, Keen?"

"How are you?"

He's always hated that question. What answer could there possibly be in a situation like this? _Oh, my possibly pregnant girlfriend, slash ex-fiancée was murdered a couple of hours ago but I'm peachy._

Or _Well, I was thinking of going on another murderous rampage but now that you've asked me how I'm doing, how could I possibly do that._

"I'm fine." That's the only answer anyone ever wants to hear.

"You're not fine. Let me-"

"What? What could you possibly say? Do you want to help me? Talk to me? Want to hear my fondest memories of her, so I could move on?"

His anger is raw and seething and misdirected but it makes him feel, it makes him focus. The alternative would be to accept whatever she has to offer, to allow her to care but he doesn't want to let go of his anger just yet; it is righteous and deserved. To her credit, Keen doesn't startle, doesn't blink, doesn't run away but looks at him like she could possibly understand.

"Donald..."

She's never said his name like that, half-pleading, half-exasperated and it tugs at some feeling buried beneath the hollowness but he tamps it down.

"Just go."

He shuts the door in her face and doesn't even contemplate opening it again.

Just as he's finally finished picking Audrey's things up from the floor, there's another knock and his anger flows over him once more, a tidal wave of everything that's gone wrong and he's fully prepared to let Keen know just how much he doesn't want her to care. Instead, it's Dembe who hands him a box from Red and a letter.

Tanida's head in the box doesn't surprise him nearly as much as the letter; it is of a future he can't see. Reddington told him that there are things in the darkness which will keep his heart from feeling the light again; that is what he wants, not a vague notion of someday waking up and not thinking about Audrey's death - about Audrey's _murder_ - ever again.

* * *

Loss and grief aren't new emotions for him. When his mother died, he was a child, scared and confused; his grief was intense and yet there was no real sense of what it meant. He cried as they buried her but didn't fully understand what it would be like to never see his mother again. With his father, he was older, technically an adult and he didn't quite know what to feel. There had been no love lost between them and his grief felt more like an obligation than true emotion. With every colleague he lost, there was a sense of acceptance, of the knowledge that this would be one part of his life as an agent and he made his peace with it.

But Audrey was never supposed to die, not now, not like this, and he can't measure his grief, can't quite figure out this hollowness, this idea that the world still moves even when she's dead. He's not sad because that would mean actually feeling something, and everything only manages to anger him. He's always been good at falling back on his anger as a default and right now, this anger keeps him going, keeps him upright.

He dissects their relationship while disassembling his gun.

_Release the magazine. _He meets Audrey for the first time, they fall in love.

_Pull slide to the rear._ He asks her to marry him, she agrees.

_Disengage slide catch lever, separate the upper slide. _She leaves.

_Remove recoil spring and guide._ He almost dies, she returns.

_Remove the barrel._ They fall in love again.

_Remove the frame assembly._ She dies.

The gun is in pieces in front of him and he methodically cleans every part, checks every crook and puts it back together.

Later he empties his clip at a gun range. He imagines Bobby Jonica instead of the target. Three to the chest, three to the head. It doesn't make him feel any better.

* * *

"Of all the gin joints, in all the towns, in all the world, he walks into mine."

Red's melodical voice catches his attention and he turns his head just in time to see Red take off his hat and take a seat next to him at the bar.

"Technically, I was here first."

"But don't you just love that quote?"

He smiles and signals for the bartender but doesn't really expect an answer.

"So, I assume you're searching for something from the bottom of your glass, Donald?"

"Why, are you worried about me, _Raymond_?"

Ressler's never used his full first name before and it bemuses him to see the surprise register on Reddington's face for a moment.

"Tell me, Donald, did you like my gift?"

He thinks of Tanida's head in the box, sufficiently and pleasingly dead. Did he _like_ it? He finds it difficult to attribute any kind of emotion to Tanida's death.

"I don't think it was for my benefit as much as it was for yours."

Reddington smiles, pleased with the answer, and gives him a curious glance. "What did you do with it? I'd suggest a freezer; it might smell a bit later on."

"Dumped it in the East River."

"Now that's a lovely idea."

He has no patience to continue this weird conversation with Reddington, to talk about decapitated heads or his feelings regarding anything.

"Why are you really here?"

"I never cared for drinking at home."

"Well, you can just enjoy it alone."

He makes a move to stand up but Reddington's hand lands on his arm and he's forced to look at the man. Red's gaze is steady and intense, laced with some kind of warning.

"Whiskey is an intelligent man's drink but it won't give you the answers you're looking for."

Ressler's tired of Reddington's roundabout sentences, of him not saying anything with all the words in the world and he just wants to be.

"What the fuck do you want, Reddington?"

"I told you I'd understand, Donald, and this makes you angry because you want to be angry, you want to feel like there's no one who could possibly know what you're feeling because to admit otherwise would force you to acknowledge that you don't want to be alone. You want to wallow in this anger because it's so easy, because it doesn't force you to do anything."

And he's right, of course he is, but Ressler can already feel the ire rise within him again and he unleashes it with pleasure, tempted to tease the devil just a little bit.

"Tell me, how long did it take you to forget your wife and daughter after they died? Tell me how easy it was."

He's touched a nerve and he's almost fascinated by the way Reddington's expression darkens and turns into menacing because he's dared to utter the words no one ever possibly has before.

"It's the hardest thing I've ever had to do. But don't for a moment confuse this with me forgetting because not a day goes by that I don't think of them."

He doesn't have an answer for that but Reddington lets go of his arm anyway.

"I'm not like you."

"Nobody expects you to be."

There's a truth he has nothing to do with.

* * *

The next night he chooses a different bar; he doesn't delude himself into thinking this will actually help him avoid Reddington but he's content if it at least makes it more difficult for him.

But instead of the world's smoothest criminal, Keen slides herself into the booth next to him. It's been three days since the last time he let his anger loose and she hasn't called, hasn't tried to reach out again but he was foolish to think she was just going to let him be.

"Reddington tell you how to find me?"

"Yes."

His anger feels miles away, lurking at the edges of his mind but not ready to be unleashed on his partner again. Instead, he's tired of it all.

"Why are you here, Liz?" He doesn't want mind games, doesn't want her to analyze him right now, to profile his grief, to tell him what he's supposed to be doing and feeling and saying, but he'll take it if it means she'll leave him alone.

"I'm here because I don't want to be drinking alone."

It's the first thing she's said that doesn't make him want to yell at her, so instead he looks at her briefly, noticing the perfectly neutral expression on her face. There's something about her words that triggers a response in him, that reminds him, if for a fleeting moment, that just a week go he was consoling her about her marriage.

"Do you want to talk about it?" His response is automatic and startles him; he has no real inclination to hear about any inane problems she might be having with her husband.

But she only smiles slightly and shakes her head. "Nope. Do you?"

"No."

"Okay then."

They sit at the bar for a while, drinking in absolute silence and it's the best social interaction he's had since Audrey's death.

* * *

"Agent Ressler, you've been cleared of all charges."

"What about the internal investigation?"

Cooper sighs and Ressler can almost picture him behind his desk, pinching his nose with his fingers.

"Your partner defended your actions and apparently someone else shot the man in the underground hospital."

"I don't understand, sir."

"He recanted his testimony. Said that it was an old rival of his and he has no idea who you are."

_Reddington._ He must've done something to scare off the guy.

"However, I urge you to take another week off. I mean it, Agent Ressler."

"Yes, sir."

* * *

Ressler drives to Richmond for the funeral; Audrey's parents took care of everything, arranged a service and a burial and he would feel like a waste of space if he could've spared any cognitive resource to thinking about anything as ordinary as a funeral.

He looks at the rows of mourners at the grave site and knows almost all of them. He can pick out those that recognize him and pretend like they don't. He's an anomaly, a fluke in the system, someone who shouldn't even be here.

He hugs her parents who don't look like they're blaming him – but they should – and her sister, and gives a court nod to Tassles who's been invited as well. Ressler declined her father's offer to speak at the service; he idly wonders if that role should now fall to Tassles. He doesn't stand next to her family because he doesn't feel like family and he doesn't want to see her friends and other relatives wonder why, exactly, he's there.

When the service ends and people disband, he stays behind and stares at the gravestone. It's real now; she's dead and buried and there's no coming back.

Though he can hear no sound, he senses a presence and turns around to find Keen standing behind him.

"You're here."

"Do you want me to leave?"

He searches her face for something, really looking at her for the first time in forever and notices how tired she looks, how worried she is – and how much she hides it – and how afraid she is of his answer. But instead of the anger and the irritability, a different kind of emotion rushes over him and he suddenly craves comfort, craves for someone to just be there for him, craves for what she wants to give him.

"No." His voice cracks and he knows that she hears it because she steps closer and touches his arm with her hand. If he turned away from her at the crime scene, now he leans into her and when she slightly squeezes his arm, he breathes as if for the first time.

* * *

**A/N: **Thank you for reading; please let me know what you thought!

P.S. I'm not sure what weapons FBI agents carry but the gun disassembly is based off of a Sig P250.


End file.
